


First Impressions

by potentiality_26



Category: Longmire (TV), Walt Longmire Mysteries - Craig Johnson
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Community: older_not_dead, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Slash, Sort-of Meet the Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Henry looked like he’d be slipping bites to the dog, if the Pipers had had a dog. Being Henry, he was probably even smooth enough to get away with it.</em>
</p><p>Walt has had worse meals than this one.  He just can't think of them right now, for a variety of reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the older_not_dead Promptathon 17 (Food and Drink) prompt: the bad food was the best part of the evening. 
> 
> So, in _Kindness Goes Unpunished_ , there’s a whole thing about Walt and Henry planning to have dinner with Cady’s boyfriend and his parents. I neither liked nor miss Cady’s boyfriend, but I do think it was a low-down thing for Craig Johnson to do, mentioning something so hilariously awkward when he clearly had no intention of following through. Anyway, when I read this prompt I knew my time had come. I waffled between book and TV canons for a while. Walt is definitely book-Walt here, but I've borrowed from the show as well, and this fic is pretty A.U. any way you slice it. Just know that Cady has been single and living outside Wyoming (maybe Philadelphia so she can meet Michael Moretti like she's supposed to), and Martha passed away at least five years ago. I'd like to think it could maybe be read as a future fic for the show, but I'll leave that to you. 
> 
> Also, there's some very vaguely race related awkwardness here, and it's mostly in Walt's head. If you're particularly sensitive to that sort of thing, be warned.

“Is it too late to tell Cady we got stuck in a traffic jam two states ago?”

Henry was focused on the road like it held all of life’s mysteries, but he looked sidelong at Walt and his mouth quirked. “It has been too late for some time.”

Walt hunkered down in his seat and scowled out the window, watching the city lights blur in the dusk. Meeting one of Cady’s boyfriends was never exactly fun, but meeting one of Cady’s boyfriends _and_ his parents at the same time had to be worse. Cady seemed to consider it a stroke of genius, reducing any number of ‘meet the family’ dinners to just one, but Walt disagreed. He disagreed with everything, on principle. “Can’t we just agree that nobody named Reginald Piper deserves her and call it good?”

Henry didn’t even glance Walt’s way that time, but his mouth quirked again.

Walt refused to give up. “I mean- she has to know that we’re going to hate them anyway. We hate them, right?”

“I do not hate them.”

“Well, they’ll probably hate us. So I think we should-”

“Walter,” Henry said gently. “It is just dinner.”

It hung in the air for a moment. “Yeah,” Walt agreed, finally, as Henry rolled to a stop at the gate of what had to be the fanciest gated community Walt had ever seen. “Right. Just dinner.”

*  *   *

The fact that it was ‘just dinner’ didn’t preclude it being an utter disaster, and by the time they found the Pipers’ house Walt was already pretty sure it would be. He mentioned as much to Henry not because he still had hope of getting the other man to see his side, but because he didn’t get to say, ‘I told you so’ unless he had, in fact, told Henry so. Walt just knew it; his gut instincts were finely honed from years in law enforcement, and he _had_ shown signs of being precognitive in the past. When Walt said as much, Henry remarked that he had always found it funny that Walt only believed he could see the future when it suited him, and- more importantly- when it wasn’t serious.  

“Well, it’s not like I can get a warrant based on a dream.”

“A vision.”

“A _dream_.”

Henry looked amused. He shook his head to himself and gave Walt a bottle of wine to hold.

Walt took the bottle and hugged it to his chest as he looked up at the Pipers’ house, a Victorian-style monstrosity that loomed over him like a harbinger of death. He’d known the family was rich- those were the kind of people Cady brushed shoulders with these days- but he still thought about where he lived and how much he made in a year and wanted to get back in the car and hide. “Have I mentioned how they’re going to hate us?”

Henry rolled his eyes. He walked faster than he normally did- likely to give Walt fewer chances to lose his nerve- and knocked firmly on the door.

Cady was the one who answered. Her mouth was only faintly curved upwards, but her eyes were beaming. “Hi, Dad,” she said, hugging Walt tightly.

“Hey, Punk,” he said. He still didn’t like this, but it was hard to stay mad at her.

She pulled back and pushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before turning to Henry. “Bear.” Her full smile broke loose and she threw her arms around his neck, hugging him for about twice as long as she had her father. Priorities thus established, Cady drew back into the doorway. “Come on in,” she said, a little breathlessly.

Walt and Henry followed her into the mudroom, where she took their jackets and hung them in a coat closet which appeared to be a whole damn room in itself.

From there, Cady directed them to another room. She paused, squeezing Walt’s hand. “It’ll be okay, Dad.”

“Yeah,” he managed, wondering how she’d known.

They lingered, briefly, and Henry and Cady sort of sparkled at each other, likely laughing at Walt for vastly preferring a crisis to a family dinner. Walt wished- not for the first time- that he’d managed to convince his daughter not to bother with all this. He wished that they were at some little restaurant, just the three of them, or maybe in Cady’s apartment.  He liked family dinners- just not this kind. 

The Pipers had a spacious kitchen with a long and very well polished bar between it and the dining room. A red-headed young man of about Cady’s age- Walt felt safe assuming this was the aforementioned Reginald- was seated at the bar, but he stood when he saw them. A slender, photogenic sort of woman in an apron was bustling around the kitchen- most likely Mrs. Piper. She stopped and smoothed her apron a few times before crossing over to them beside her son.    

Cady grinned. “This is my father, Walt Longmire, and Henry Standing Bear,” she said, as hands were shook all around and Walt delivered his wine to Mrs. Piper, who he didn’t think he _would_ call June even though she asked him too. Walt glanced over and saw that Henry was shaking Reginald’s hand. From the faintly pinched look of the boy’s pale face, he was squeezing rather hard. That amused Walt, though in truth Reginald seemed nice enough, in a scrawny, cowed sort of way. He looked like he would have been hiding behind Cady if he could have. Even after Henry let him go, he kept casting pleading looks in Walt’s direction; apparently he didn’t know it was Henry he had to impress at this shindig. Walt was just going to resent the kid regardless, and Cady actually took Henry’s advice. Whether it was because she wanted to get his opinion or because she thought he might be able to keep Walt from shooting anyone that Cady had requested Henry come along Walt didn’t know. He would have brought Henry regardless, of course- one didn’t go into a situation like this without backup, and Henry was the best kind.  

Walt noticed that Mrs. Piper was looking Henry up and down like she didn’t know what to make of him, and he bristled slightly. Though it was possible that the Pipers had expected Walt to come alone, Walt doubted Cady would have sprung an extra guest on the family. It was more likely that they just hadn’t expected _Henry_.

Walt tried- and failed- to picture Henry, and himself with Henry, through their eyes. He didn’t know how to begin. Walt had known Henry for so long that he couldn’t fathom what it might be like to meet him for the first time now. What was more, even after so many years he still looked at Henry sometimes and couldn’t believe he was really there, couldn’t believe he had really concluded that Walt was someone he wanted to spend his time with, couldn’t believe he was that lucky. Walt mainly looked at the world as if everyone in it felt similarly about Henry, even if they could only be around him for a little while, and he was usually right. When people weren’t comfortable with Henry right off, Walt tended not to feel comfortable with them.

“My husband had to take an important phone call, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Piper said. “He should be here soon. Why don’t I open that lovely wine?”

Walt wasn’t convinced that she did think it was lovely, but he summoned what he hoped was a gracious smile. She was lucky, really; Henry had gone through great pains and many collusions with Cady to find out what she was cooking so the wine would match it. Walt, knowing as he did nothing whatsoever about wine, would undoubtedly have picked something much worse. As they all gravitated towards the bar, Cady started the conversation with ye olde standby- the weather.  

After a minute of what a mild winter they’d had, Walt was already pondering ways to excuse himself to the bathroom without making any major faux pas. Henry looked faintly uncomfortable too- so faintly, though, that only Walt would notice. It would be awkward if Henry tried to go first, because it would seem odd if Walt followed him. They could get away with that at home, where everybody knew them, but not here.

Then again, from the look Mrs. Piper had shot at Henry, it was very possible that nothing he did would strike her as odd. It made Walt wonder once again what Cady had told this family, or failed to tell them.

It wasn’t too long before the conversation lagged, and that was when Mr. Piper swept in. His wife sent a glare his way, one that said on no uncertain terms that now that he was here, he needed to contribute something.

Mr. Piper was considerably taller than his wife, and very polished looking. He had greying hair and silver glasses, and he wore a button down and slacks as though that was as casual as he ever got. He swept in with a big, confident smile and the kind of handshake that some elected officials had gotten down to a science and shook Walt’s hand. “Mr. Longmire,” he said. “It’s great to finally meet you. My son’s crazy about Cady. We all are.”

“That’s great,” Walt said. There was something about Mr. Piper that immediately rubbed Walt the wrong way. He doubted that Henry felt the same, but that didn’t make Walt’s impression invalid- over the years, it had gotten harder and harder to rub Henry the wrong way. If that hadn’t been the case, the world would most likely be a very different place. As it was, Henry seemed happy to blend into the wall by the oven while Walt dealt with Mr. Piper senior.  

“You’re a sheriff back in Wyoming, aren’t you?” Mr. Piper asked. When Walt nodded, he said, “I was District Attorney for a while. I could probably give you some election tips.”

“I believe it,” Walt said, and he did. Even if Cady hadn’t already told him, Walt would’ve known that Mr. Piper had held an elected position. Probably, he was a master of the political campaign, and no doubt he could tell Walt a great many things that he didn’t know. The fact that Walt had no desire to know any of these things was neither here nor there.

“And you- sir- excuse me-” Mr. Piper reached over to Henry with another blinding smile. “Craig Piper.”

“Henry Standing Bear.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t heard what you do.”

“I own a bar,” Henry said. He looked deeply unimpressed by Mr. Piper’s show of charisma.

“Ah,” Mr. Piper replied. His face very briefly made a real expression, relieved and concerned at once, like he’d been thinking Henry wouldn’t have a job and was glad he did, but didn’t know what to say now. To make things even stranger, what Mr. Piper finally chose say seemed rather out of left field. “My wife doesn’t work.”    

“Right,” Walt said.

There was a brief awkward silence, and Mrs. Piper couldn’t seem bear it. “How long have you two…” she began, and gestured vaguely between Walt and Henry.  

Walt glanced at Henry. “Oh. Forever, I guess? I mean, we’ve known each other since grade school.”

Mrs. Piper’s ears turned pink, and Mr. Piper coughed suddenly.

Walt shot Cady a look to make sure her boyfriend hadn’t nuked her brain or anything and that she was aware of how strange all this was. Her expression _was_ rather pained, but her eyes were angled away and Walt couldn’t meet them. She was watching Henry, which struck Walt as odd. Sure, Walt was the one Mr. Piper had been trying to make nice with, and Henry was the one he didn’t seem to know what to do with, but Henry was _good_ at this shit. He could take tea with people worse than this and most of the time they wouldn’t even know he’d spent the whole thing politely insulting them. It wasn’t that Henry never got offended, it was that when he was offended he didn’t tend to do things that either ruined Cady’s chances with Reginald or got him arrested for assault. But if they kept looking at Henry like he was from another planet, Walt just might punch Mr. Piper in his smug face.

Henry, at least, could see Walt fuming. His arms were crossed over his chest and he gave Walt an amused look before directing his attention toward Mrs. Piper. “Can I help with anything?” he asked brightly. “Setting the table, maybe?”

She jumped faintly. “Oh, no- that’s all done. There are a few side dishes, though…”

Mrs. Piper gave Henry- and then Walt- things to carry to the table, and the situation appeared to have been more or less diffused itself by the time everyone made their way into the dining room. Mr. and Mrs. Piper seemed to have calmed down, too, as everyone sat- Mr. Piper at the head of the table, his wife at the foot, Henry and Walt on one side and Cady and Reginald on the other. Wine was poured, food- what looked to be steak, mixed vegetables, and mashed potatoes- was passed around, and toasts were made.

Walt turned his attention to dinner and he immediately wished he hadn’t. The steak was rather painfully tough, the vegetables were fairly liquid, and the potatoes were gluey and had an off flavor. He’d had worse, of course he had- he’d cooked himself worse plenty of times, it was why Henry so often took pity on him and handled dinner for both of them- but it made an already awkward evening much worse. Walt took a drink of wine to try to recover himself, and then attempted to breathe some life into the flagging conversation by addressing Piper Jr. “So, Reggie- where did you go to school?”

“I- uh- I don’t actually prefer to be called that,” the boy said. “But I went to-” Walt was so busy making a mental note to _always_ call him Reggie that he lost track of the answer altogether.

For all his apparent shyness, Reggie seemed to enjoy talking about himself and both his parents and Cady seemed to enjoy listening, so Walt went back to eating.

He took a bite and chewed. And chewed some more. Walt had mostly tuned out Reggie and his ever-so-exciting school days at that point, so he just watched Henry out of the corner of his eye.   Henry looked like he’d be slipping bites to the dog, if the Pipers had had a dog. Being Henry, he was probably even smooth enough to get away with it.

Even knowing what a good cook Henry was- what a fool he could make out of Mrs. Piper after five minutes in her fancy kitchen- Walt wondered when Henry turned into such a food snob. He had seen Henry eat… things. Things which, frankly, defied description. Walt wanted to say something to that effect, but even though Henry was right next to him he couldn’t just lean over and whisper. Walt wished, briefly, that his working Cheyenne vocabulary- or Lakota or French or any of the other languages Henry spoke- was a little more extensive, so they could talk over the Piper’s heads if the mood struck them.

As it was, Walt glanced sidelong at Henry, and then he didn’t need to ask Henry about the way he was picking at his dinner. Henry had been all over; he’d eaten with people making do with nothing and appreciated their efforts- he just thought that the Pipers could do better. Sometimes Walt would look at Henry and he’d know what his friend would say so well that the exchange itself became superfluous. The faint glitter of disapproval in those dark eyes was all he needed.

Walt gave Henry a little smile, and Henry quietly smiled back.

“-don’t you agree, Mr. Longmire?” Mr. Piper was saying.

Walt panicked just a little and stared at the man. “Pardon?”

“My son initially didn’t want to go into the law because he was worried that his success might be… attributed to my influence,” Mr. Piper said. “I told him that he had to face the nepotism in the business. Everyone gets the job somehow. It’s the way you keep it that matters.”

Walt hummed in a manner he thought might be construed as agreement by someone like Mr. Piper.

“Exactly. And we have to look after our own. Blood is thicker than water, and all that.”

Cady was starting to look bored. Proving it, she said, “I’ve never understood why people say that. Have you, Bear?”

“Hmm,” Henry rumbled in agreement. “It is, as I understand it, a misappropriation of the actual quotation- ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,’ which in fact means the opposite.”

“What?” Mrs. Piper asked, looking somewhat stricken.

“It means that the bonds we make in life are stronger than those we are born with,” Walt said, and managed to catch of the corner of Henry’s eye.

Henry smiled.

*   *   *

Reggie picked up the conversational slack with a story about a time he and Cady had had to run all over the city because of a file he had misplaced. He took particular relish in how Cady had sweet-talked an assistant into helping them out, which made Cady flush a particularly bright shade of pink. In this case, Walt didn’t mind. Embarrassing and awkward stories were what these sorts of dinners were _for_ , and at the very least that boy was finally proving he was human.

“Are you getting our girl into trouble?” Henry asked when Reggie was finished.

Everyone paused to eye Henry- and this time everyone included Walt. Though he had spoken before, this was the first time he’d volunteered something like that. The Pipers might also have taken issue at the word ‘our,’ though Walt didn’t. Cady was very nearly as much Henry’s daughter as she was Walt’s, and since Henry had played no part whatsoever in her technical conception that was all the result of _effort_ , of being there when she needed him, no questions asked. _The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb_ indeed; Walt knew it certainly could be.

What had Walt surprised was the _way_ Henry said it. His tone was light, but there was an odd weight to his eyes as they fixed on Reggie and waited for an answer. This question meant a lot to Henry, and Walt wasn’t sure why. Then again, maybe he was. Walt couldn’t recall where at the moment, but he knew that he had heard that question somewhere before.

Wherever it came from, Henry was going to be disappointed. Reggie blushed and stuttered and never managed a sentence in reply.

Cady smiled, her own blush fading, and picked up the slack. “It’s a hazard,” she said.

Henry smiled back at Cady. It was possible that she didn’t detect any undercurrent in that smile, occupied as she was with helping her boyfriend save face, but Walt definitely did. Henry looked like he had just given Reggie the most important test in the universe, and Reggie had failed it royally. Then he looked faintly amused, faintly pleased, and went back to soldiering through his dinner as though nothing had happened at all.

Walt smiled privately to himself, glad that- at this point- Henry’s feelings about Reggie were as mixed as his own.

It was Walt’s last smile of the evening, because dessert came next.

He’d never known cake could go so wrong.

*   *   *

After dessert, Walt helped clear the table, and then finally did excuse himself to the restroom. He stayed in there far longer than was appropriate, frankly. There were seashells arranged in a tasteful pattern against the mirror, and Walt rearranged them to fuck with the Pipers. Then it occurred to him that the Pipers could well have a maid or something whose job it was to arrange those shells, and Walt probably wouldn’t be fucking with anyone but her, so he put them back like he found them.

Once that was done and he came back out, Cady and Reggie had left the dining room and so had Henry.   For a moment, Walt was very afraid he’d have to talk to the Pipers alone, but Mr. Piper only cleared his throat and said, “Your… friend is in the coat closet.”

“Thank you,” Walt said, too relieved that they were getting ready to leave to come up with a witty rejoinder. And then he processed Mr. Piper’s little annoying pause and wondered for the first time if the Pipers were under the impression that Henry was… well, Cady’s other dad, and not just in spirit. Walt took a moment to wonder if that might not explain a few things, if maybe they’d expected a wife or a girlfriend and gotten Henry instead. He probably should have wrestled with that for longer than he did. He probably would have, except that he got distracted, boggling anew at the size of the Piper’s coat closet. It was bigger than the bathroom, which was pretty damn big, and Henry was in there retrieving Walt’s jacket. His eyes crinkled when he saw Walt. There was a fond look in those eyes that never failed to make Walt’s stomach turn over pleasantly.

“I don’t get it,” Walt said quietly to Henry as the door shut behind him. “The Pipers are rolling in money, right? Couldn’t they hire a cook or something?”

Henry’s mouth quirked. “It is just as well. All in all, I thought the food was the best part of the evening.”

Walt laughed- well, sniggered might have been the more appropriate term- as he pulled on his jacket. He sobered all too soon. “Oh, God,” he said. “What if she marries him?”

“She will not.”

“Did she… tell you that?” Walt was getting used to Henry knowing more about Cady than he did, slowly. He’d had her whole life to work on it.

“She does not have to,” Henry replied. “He did not say the right thing.”

Walt remembered the one question Henry had asked Reggie and froze, because in that moment he also remembered where he’d heard it before. _Are you getting my boy into trouble?_   Walt’s mother had asked Henry the first time Walt had invited him home for dinner. From his end of the table, Walt’s father had winced, but Henry hadn’t batted an eye.

 _Sometimes,_ he’d said, with that unfailing honesty that had a tendency to put everyone else off their game. _There is no one I would rather be in it with._   

And Walt had been entirely too busy feeling like someone had lit a fire in his guts to note what reaction his parents had had to this statement. But Walt wondered now, wondered if they had been impressed by Henry’s boldness and then put it out of their minds, faintly hoping that Walt would still be in one piece when Henry lost interest, or if they had known then that, for reasons Walt could never quite fathom, this was bigger than that for Henry. “That’s your potential suitor litmus test?” Walt asked. He tried to keep his tone careless, but it was hard. It didn’t sound as ridiculous as it had before he remembered that his mother had put that question to Henry a long damn ago, and here the two of them still were.  

Henry shrugged one shoulder. “Other answers are acceptable,” he returned, knowing that Walt remembered now. “It is not too much to ask that he answer for himself, at the very least. If he is too afraid of me to say that he cares for her, it is a problem, Walter.”

So, what- when Henry was saying, _There is no one I would rather be in trouble with_ , what he meant was, _I love_ _you_? Given the way they’d first met, it wasn’t all that much of a stretch. Back then, Henry had gotten into trouble like he was putting on shoes. And once he had been invited to stand at Henry’s back instead of in front of his fists, Walt had blundered in along behind him, as faithful sidekicks do. “Oh,” Walt said, and for a while that was all he said. Perhaps he should simply have put a stress on the word ‘suitor,’ because if Henry was just looking for a test of potential longevity, he might in fact have struck gold.

Walt considered the Pipers, and the impression that they had developed of Henry. Walt thought about mentioning it, too, but suddenly it didn’t sound all that ridiculous either. Maybe the word ‘suitor’ wasn’t so entirely off the mark after all- and if ever a thought had brought Walt up short, it was that one.

“At the very least,” Henry continued casually, as if Walt wasn’t having his world turned upside down in a giant coat closet, “the answer should say something about the person. The man.”

“Yeah,” Walt agreed, faintly. “What do you think it said to my parents?” he asked, because he was still curious.

“That I wasn’t going anywhere,” Henry replied.

“Oh,” Walt said again.

Henry’s mouth curled upward. It wasn’t a happy look, exactly, but it was just as fond as ever. Almost painfully so. And again, Walt found that he didn’t need Henry to say a word. He knew, in that moment, that- for Henry- the writing had been on the wall from the very beginning. Walt wondered if it had been heavy, the knowledge of their friendship and what it would mean to both of them for so damn long. Walt also wondered how long there had been more to it than just friendship. He wondered if Henry had been not going anywhere and waiting for Walt to collide with the clue bus forever, or if this was as new to him as it was to Walt. Two people can be in a lot of different places over the course of fifty years, and maybe right now they were in one that neither of them had ever expected to be.

Walt wondered if it even mattered which it was, and his mouth went dry. “Can I-“

He didn’t finish and he didn’t need to, because that sixth sense of each other went both ways. Henry’s eyes crinkled again and he took a step forward. It was all the opening Walt needed. He raised a hand to cradle the side of Henry’s head, leaned in, and kissed him.  

It took a moment to work out whose nose went where, but after that they just… clicked. It was strange, but also nice, to kiss someone as tall as he was. Henry tasted mainly like all the wine he’d been drinking to drown out the taste of dinner, and Walt didn’t care for that- but he thought he’d get a better sample to compare it to later that night, and thinking about _that_ made him feel somewhat giddy, in a way he hadn’t in a long time. Walt’s hand slid around, his fingers going into Henry’s hair. It felt as good as Walt had never acknowledged thinking it would.               

Henry broke away unexpectedly and gave Walt a crooked grin. He was already running his fingers through his hair and straightening his collar when Walt finally heard the footsteps. By the time the door opened, Henry didn’t look at all like he’d been necking in the Pipers’ closet, which was more than Walt could say.

And God, it was Reggie and Cady- _Cady_ , who took one look at Walt and turned bright pink. And the crazy thing about it was that her flush was only one part, ‘Ugh, my _Dad_ was kissing somebody’ to three parts Walt didn’t even know what, but she looked excited and maybe even pleased, as if she’d gotten something for Christmas she hadn’t expected, but actually rather liked. Walt would think very hard about what that meant later. He cleared his throat. Much later. “We- um- we’d better head out.”

“Yeah,” Cady agreed. “You guys can drop me off at my apartment, right?”

“Of course,” Henry said. Walt caught a glint in his eyes over Cady’s head and knew their night wouldn’t be over once they had. He decided that the food hadn’t been the best part after all.

Cady and Reggie ducked away, to collect her things or say their goodbyes in private. Walt and Henry exited the closet to bid Mr. and Mrs. Piper an awkward farewell. On a whim, Walt grabbed Henry’s hand on their way out and enjoyed the metaphor. Henry ran with it, though his eyes glittered in a way that let Walt know that he was laughing really hard on the inside. Walt figured that they were never going to be PDA people- and that was good, because it wouldn’t go over so well at home- but it was nice to see the vein in Mr. Piper’s forehead pop like that.

“It was a pleasure to meet you both,” Mr. Piper told them.

“Likewise,” Walt replied. “Let’s do this again some time.” He had a feeling that they both meant it the same amount.

“Goodbye,” Mrs. Piper said faintly.

As soon as they were out the door, Henry laughed softly. Walt laughed right along with him, and Henry didn’t let go of his hand right away. No, the food definitely wasn’t the best part.

*   *   *

“Cady,” Walt said to her on the stoop of her apartment building. The drive there had been a quiet one, but- Walt thought- only awkward for him. Still, he felt like he needed to say something to his daughter. He just didn’t know what. “We should…” He swallowed. “We should talk.”

She smiled and hugged him. “You worry too much, Dad,” she whispered in his ear and held him tight. She broke away. “I’ll see you both tomorrow, all right?” she added a little louder.

Henry nodded. Cady kissed his cheek and went inside.  

They lingered on the stairs for a moment before heading to the car. “I think I saw a diner next to our hotel,” Henry said.

“Oh, thank God.”

Henry chuckled all warm and low.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the Princess Bride reference. I couldn't help it.


End file.
